News & Updates

In cooperation with the American Ambulance Association, we and others have created a running compilation of local and national news stories relating to EMS delivery. Since January, 2021, over 1,800 news reports have been chronicled, with 49% highlighting the EMS staffing crisis, and 34% highlighting the funding crisis. Combined reports of staffing and/or funding account for 83% of the media reports! 96 reports cite EMS system closures/agencies departing communities, and 95% of the news articles reference staffing challenges, funding issues and response times.


Click below for an up to date list of these news stories, with links to the source documents.

Media Log as of 3-27-24 READ Only.xlsx

  • 20 May 2018 7:30 AM | AIMHI Admin (Administrator)

    CMS to launch $25 billion quality initiative

    By Virgil Dickson  | May 16, 2018

    http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20180516/NEWS/180519932

    The CMS wants to consolidate several Medicare quality programs in an effort to identify the highest performing organization and have them scale their efforts under a contract that’s worth up to $25 billion.

    Quality improvement networks and organizations, end-stage renal disease networks, and hospital improvement innovation networks will now fall under one large contract that focuses on educating and training stakeholders that could affect quality of care for Medicare patients. These organizations include hospitals, clinicians and long-term care facilities that work together to reduce hospitalizations, readmissions and poor care outcomes.

    The effort will allow the CMS to “establish a pool of quality improvement contractors that are capable of rapid national, regional, state and local level quality improvement,” an agency spokesman said.

    Among those affected by this move are Health Services Holdings, TMF Health Quality Institute and HealthInsight. Hospital improvement innovation networks now under contract include providers Atrium Health and Dignity Health and group purchasing organizations Premier and Vizient, among others.

    These groups can apply to be part of what will now be known as the Network of Quality Improvement and Innovation Contractors, or NQIIC. Applications will be accepted through June 26 and will be awarded Dec. 1. The contracts will last for five years, with the option of a five-year renewal. The budget for the new quality initiative is up to $25 billion.

    The CMS will provide guidance and funding and NQIIC participants will be expected to gather providers, patients and other stakeholders to address a care or quality problem. For instance, if a certain region in the country is struggling with hospital acquired infections or a spike in the number of falls, a group could be called to come up with a solution, identify best practices or rapidly test quality improvement efforts to address the problem in question.

    NQIIC vendors must also seek ways to harmonize measures across care settings and eliminate those that aren’t useful.

    “The proposed new structure addresses legitimate provider complaints about too many measures and too many rules on how to meet those measures, it maintains a clear focus on outcomes and on vulnerable populations,” said Michael Millenson, president of consulting firm Health Quality Advisors.

    The various quality contractors used by different providers can create variances that could affect Medicare patients who require care across primary, acute and post-acute settings, said Dr. Rahul Koranne, chief medical officer at the Minnesota Hospital Association, which has been a hospital improvement innovation networks since 2016. The CMS requires the networks to work with hospitals to decrease instances of patient harm and preventable 30-day readmissions.

    “If care in the hospital is the only thing that improves, and not in a nursing home or clinic, that’s not servicing a patient,” Koranne said.

    The new structure will concentrate on proven approaches, said Ellen Gagnon, interim CEO of Network for Regional Healthcare Improvement, a national network health improvement collaboratives. “Clinicians, especially in rural areas, could benefit from reduced administrative burden and a more coordinated support system to navigate the emerging pay for value environment,” Gagnon said.

    There is some controversy about the effort since the new effort may mean that quality improvement organizations, will no longer be able to conduct claims audits due to new duties under NQIIC, according to said Emily Evans, a health policy analyst at Hedgeye Risk Management. The CMS has been relying more on quality improvement organizations to audit hospital claims instead of recovery audit contractors.

    Hospitals prefer quality improvement organizations over RACs, which are paid by the CMS to comb through providers’ medical records to ensure Medicare payments are accurate. RACs receive a cut of each overpayment they find. Quality improvement organizations tend to be run by clinicians making them better suited to judge these claims.

    In a FAQ document released by the CMS, it said it won’t announce terms of quality improvement organization contracts until next year.

  • 25 Mar 2018 10:00 AM | AIMHI Admin (Administrator)

    By Shelby Livingston

    March 20, 2018

    UnitedHealth Group has shot back at physician staffing firm Envision Healthcare over allegations surrounding emergency room billing, creating a website blaming Envision for patients’ costly emergency room bills.

    The two companies are locked in a dispute over payment issues. Envision, which has previously landed in hot water with lawmakers and researchers over surprise out-of-network billing practices, sued UnitedHealth on March 12, claiming the insurer violated a contract by refusing to add Envision doctors to its network and lowering payment rates despite Envision’s objections.

    Envision also said UnitedHealth is trying to collect more than $140 million in overpayments to the staffing firm based on the newly lowered rates.

    UnitedHealth Group shot back with a website describing how Envision’s “outrageous billing practices” drive up costs for hospitals and patients. The website’s launch was first reported by Axios.

    In a fact sheet about Envision, UnitedHealth said it is negotiating a new contract with the staffing firm to protect patients from high costs and surprise medical bills. The insurer claimed Envision charges an average of 975% of what Medicare pays for the same services—more than the average cost of an out-of-network ER bill at 798% of the cost of what Medicare pays, according to the Brookings Institution.

    Nashville-based Envision is the nation’s largest physician staffing firm with 25,000 physicians and other medical practitioners who staff hospital departments, including the emergency room, radiology, anesthesiology and neonatology. Envision’s 2017 revenue totaled more than $7.8 billion.

    Envision last year was scrutinized for sending patients big out-of-network ER bills. A July 2017 Yale University study found that hospitals that outsourced their emergency department operations to Envision unit EmCare experienced increases in the rates of out-of-network doctor’s bills, tests ordered and patients admitted to the ER. In September, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) wrote a letter to Envision CEO Christopher Holden requesting information on Envision’s billing practices in light of the study.

    In its lawsuit against UnitedHealth, Envision puts the blame for big patient bills on the insurance company. UnitedHealth refused to add new Envision doctors to its network after Envision merged with ambulatory surgery center operator AmSurg in 2016, the lawsuit alleged.

    “The impact of United’s conduct extends beyond plaintiffs to patients who are United enrollees,” the complaint said. “United’s unjustified refusal to affiliate entities timely or at all hurts patients financially, while saving United money at the patients’ expense.”

    Envision also alleged that UnitedHealth lowered contracted rates in violation of a provider agreement and has pressured Envision doctors to contract with the insurer on “unreasonable terms” or stay out of network.

    “We are currently negotiating a new contract with Envision to end their outrageous billing practices, which drive up costs unnecessarily for both consumers and hospitals. The lawsuit won’t distract us from the negotiation and the real conversation that is needed about their excessively high rates,” a UnitedHealth spokesman said in a statement.

  • 10 Mar 2018 7:20 PM | AIMHI Admin (Administrator)

    The ride-sharing company is launching a service that allows doctors to hail cars for their patients.

    OLGA KHAZAN March 1, 2018 

    The ride-sharing company Uber is launching a new service that will allow hospitals and doctors to book rides for their patients.

    The new Uber Health dashboard, which has been tested by a beta group of about 100 hospitals and doctors’ offices since July, will allow medical and administrative staff to either call an Uber to the office to drive a specific patient home, or to dispatch an Uber to the patient’s house, with the option to schedule it up to 30 days in advance.

    The patient need not have the Uber app or even a working smartphone: The dashboard comes with a printable sheet allowing a doctor to circle the incoming Uber’s car color and write down the license plate.

    With the dashboard, the drivers would see the patient’s name and phone number. The patient would get a text when their car arrived; if they have the regular Uber app, it would not be billed.

    The new tools are compliant with HIPAA, the medical-privacy law, the company says. Uber Health’s data is “cordoned off” from the rest of Uber’s data, and only a handful of employees are given access, says Jay Holley, the head of partnerships at Uber Health.

    Citing studies, the company says missed doctors’ appointments cost the health-care system $150 billion each year, and that 3.6 million Americans miss or delay appointments due to a lack of reliable transportation.

    Holley is not aware of any Medicaid or insurance plan that reimbursed for Uber rides. He says many hospitals are paying for the rides out of their own budgets, finding it cheaper than the cost of missed appointments. Uber Health’s prices are similar to those of Uber in the same city, but the company did not have an average price for the Uber Health rides.

    Pro Staff Physical Therapy, which has seven locations in New Jersey, began using Uber Health last summer. Many of the practice’s patients must come in two or three times per week, and many can’t drive because they’ve been injured, says Carlos Ospina, the chief clinical officer at Pro Staff. The Ubers are cheaper than cabs, he says, and Pro Staff covers the cost for patients. The only hiccup came from some of the practice’s less tech-savvy, older patients. They weren’t sure about the service at first, but they warmed to it with time and explanations from staff, he said.

    Arun Sundararajan, a business professor at New York University and the author of The Sharing Economy, says it’s a good move for Uber to enter health care, which makes up one-sixth of the economy. The only pitfall, he says, might be in working out liability. How much is the driver responsible if, say, the patient faints in the back seat? “The burden on the platform and the health-care provider to ensure against something going wrong with the patient is a lot higher than if the patient is calling the car themselves,” Sundararajan says. “The fact that they are only launching this service now and not in the past is because it’s likely taken a while to work out the details.”

    Many doctors call cabs for their patients, but Uber is available in about 250 U.S. cities and is sometimes cheaper than a metered taxi. Holley says that it would be up to doctors to determine if a patient was well enough to take an Uber, rather than an ambulance, and that if something happened to the patient in transit, the Uber driver should just call 911.

    Partnering with hospitals might also introduce Uber to new customers. As recently as 2015, just 15 percent of Americans had used ride-hailing apps, and a third had never heard of them. The apps are mainly popular among higher-income people and college graduates, a Pew survey found. Conceivably, some of these patients, safely delivered to their homes by Uber Health, will go on to download the regular app for themselves.

    The announcement comes after a string of scandals involving Uber in recent years. Just since January 2017, Uber has settled a lawsuit alleging that it misled drivers about earnings, and it faced sexual-harassment claims. It’s also been reported that the company spied on drivers, city agencies, and certain users. In November, it admitted to paying hackers $100,000 to cover up a data breach that affected 57 million accounts, disclosing names, emails, and phone numbers. (“None of this should have happened, and I will not make excuses for it,” said Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi in a statement regarding the breach and cover-up. “While I can’t erase the past, I can commit on behalf of every Uber employee that we will learn from our mistakes.”)

    “Uber has developed a reputation for pushing the limits of the law in its pursuit of dominating the ride-hailing market,” is how The Wall Street Journal described the company last fall. In 2015, a survey found that Lyft had become a more trusted ride-hailing app than Uber.

    It remains to be seen if allying with the more pure-seeming health world will repair Uber’s reputation—or how much its brand is even suffering. After all, according to a spokeswoman, the company still has 75 million riders and 3 million drivers globally.

    “We have a short memory as consumers,” the Georgetown University business professor Marlene Towns told the AP last fall, regarding Uber. “We tend to be, if not forgiving, forgetful.”

    We might be especially forgiving if we happen to be spared a hefty ambulance bill.

  • 10 Mar 2018 12:30 PM | AIMHI Admin (Administrator)

    By Tara Bannow  | March 2, 2018

    Atrium Health and UNC Health Care announced Friday the two systems are suspending merger talks, following vocal criticism from state officials, including North Carolina’s treasurer and attorney general.

    Charlotte-based Atrium signed a letter of intent to create a joint venture with UNC Health Care in August. The resulting system would have had about $14 billion in combined annual operating revenue, more than 50 hospitals and more than 90,000 employees.

    Atrium’s CEO, Gene Woods, and the chairman of its Board of Commissioners, Ed Brown, called off the deal in a letter to UNC Health Care’s leadership on Friday.

    An Atrium spokeswoman declined to say what caused the proposed deal to fall through. It was subject to a review by North Carolina’s attorney general and potentially the Federal Trade Commission as well.

    “Everything we have to say at this point is in what we sent (in the statement),” she said.

    In its own press release, UNC Health Care CEO William Roper and board Chairman Dale Jenkins said the two systems agreed that the best path forward is to identify specific opportunities to collaborate, as they have previously, rather than form a joint operating company.

    “We would like to express our gratitude to the leadership teams at Atrium Health, UNC Health Care and the UNC School of Medicine for the time and effort spent working on the joint operating company proposal,” they said.

    Public officials in North Carolina have been openly skeptical with their concern that the deal would raise prices for patients and taxpayers, and have put significant pressure on the systems to offer evidence to the contrary.

    Dale Folwell, the state’s treasurer, said he was concerned that the two systems never brought their proposed deal forward for review by North Carolina’s Council of State, of which he is a member. The prominent group also includes the state’s attorney general and insurance commissioner. Folwell said he never received evidence that the deal would not raise prices.

    As treasurer, Folwell said he oversees North Carolina’s State Health Plan, a health plan that covers public employees.

    “I’m the keeper of the public purse and I have to protect taxpayers of this state and participants in the state health plan, who are also taxpayers,” he said.

    Folwell said he asked UNC Health Care representatives to provide the State Health Plan a $1 billion bond guaranteeing a merger with Atrium would not increase medical costs for its members and other taxpayers. They declined.

    Similarly, North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein wrote a letter last month to the CEOs of Atrium and UNC asking for additional information on how the deal would impact consumers. “We seek information to assess whether the proposed combination would increase prices for health care, reduce choices available to patients and payors, or otherwise harm North Carolina patients, North Carolina businesses, or the state itself,” he wrote.

    That concern was conveyed in a recent lawsuit. A North Carolina resident and Atrium patient filed a putative class-action lawsuit in a federal district court in the state Wednesday against the health system alleging Atrium used its market dominance to impose unlawful contract restrictions that prohibit commercial health insurers from offering inpatients financial benefits to use less-expensive health care services offered by Atrium’s competitors.

    Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina’s CEO also came out against the proposed merger in January, arguing it would drive up prices for patients.

    Atrium, which changed its name from Carolinas HealthCare System last month, wrote in its news release that it remains committed to creating an organization that can serve more people and address North Carolina’s most pressing issues, including rural healthcare, behavioral health and affordability.

    “In our letter sent to UNC Health Care today, we informed them that while we have not been able to reach an agreement, our respect for UNC Health Care, its team and UNC Health Care’s accomplishments has grown through this process,” Atrium wrote in a news release. “Their desire to work collaboratively to improve the health of every North Carolinian is something we highly value and to which we are also committed.”

    Atrium’s spokeswoman declined to say whether negotiations could reopen in the future.

    “I think it’s fair to say right now the discussions are not going forward,” she said.

    Last month, Atrium and Macon, Ga.-based Navicent Health signed a letter of intent to join forces. The combination of not-for-profits would give Atrium a regional presence in Georgia, opportunity to expand to other areas and bolster its service lines. Navicent, which would become part of Atrium, would gain access to capital and benefit from spreading costs over a wider patient base.

    Ken Marlow, chair of the healthcare department at law firm Waller Lansden Dortch & Davis, said that deal may have rankled UNC executives.

    “If a partner sees that your strategy and priorities are spread out and not concentrated in a way that aligns, that would be a real sticking point,” particularly for the conflicting business models of academic and non-academic institutions, he said.

    Deals like Atrium and UNC falling apart could potentially slow the furious pace of healthcare mergers, Marlow said.

    “But I am not seeing that right now—it is feverish,” he said

  • 10 Mar 2018 11:30 AM | AIMHI Admin (Administrator)

    Lack of privacy affects accurate diagnosis of medical conditions and beyond

    Thomson Reuters Mar 01, 2018

    Patients are more likely to be misdiagnosed or experience treatment delays when emergency rooms are so crowded that they receive care in a hallway, a survey of physicians suggests.

    Privacy and confidentiality are vital in emergency care, particularly for patients who may be reluctant to undress or divulge sensitive personal information in front of companions in an exam room or strangers in a hallway, researchers note in the Emergency Medicine Journal.

    To see how doctors think this lack of privacy affects care, researchers surveyed 440 emergency room physicians attending a medical conference in Boston in 2015.

    “What we found is that these non-private encounters not only affect the accurate diagnosis of medical conditions, but also of social and behavioral conditions such as domestic violence, human trafficking, suicidality, and substance use,” said lead study author Dr. Hanni Stoklosa, an emergency physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston.

    “This is quite concerning on many levels because emergency departments are on the front lines of caring for patients most vulnerable to these conditions,” Stoklosa said by email.

    Overall, nine in 10 doctors surveyed said they changed or shortened how they took patient medical histories when another person was present, and more than half of the physicians also altered how they did physical exams.

    More than three-quarters of the doctors said that, at least sometimes, they did an abbreviated medical history when patients were treated in hallways. Under these circumstances, nearly all of the doctors also reported sometimes, often or always changing how they conducted physical exams.

    Even when patients had an exam room, nearly all of the doctors said they at least occasionally altered how they gathered medical histories or conducted physical exams when a friend or family member was present.

    While most physicians said patient gender wasn’t a factor, doctors were more likely to change how they did medical histories and exams for female patients, the study also found.

    Changes to medical histories and exams were most common with genital and urinary problems, the study found.

    Missed cases
    Only 26 per cent of doctors said taking an abbreviated medical history had not led them to fail to diagnose a social issue like suicidal thinking or elder abuse, while 54 per cent said changes in a physical exam due to lack of privacy had not caused them to miss such issues.

    But more than one-third of doctors said they had missed cases of domestic violence under these circumstances, while
    about 12 per cent had overlooked instances of child abuse.

    In addition, 47 per cent of doctors thought a shortened medical history was linked to missing substance abuse and 25 per cent said an altered exam had this result.

    The study wasn’t a controlled experiment designed to prove whether or how care in hallways or without privacy might lead to delays or misdiagnosed patients. It also focused only on the opinions of doctors at a medical conference, and results might differ with a broader, nationally representative group of emergency physicians.

    Even so, the results add to evidence that the environment or surroundings in which patients are cared for may influence their treatment, said Dr. Bernard Chang, a professor of emergency medicine at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City.

    “Past work has found that patients treated in overcrowded emergency departments often have delays in medical care and increased risk of medical errors,” Chang, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by email.

    A lack of privacy may at least partially explain this increased risk.

    “While an ideal situation would be for patients to have their own private space to talk with their providers, in the emergency department, patients are often seen in crowded and at times high stress situations, and the ability to get a private room may just not be practically feasible,” Chang said.

    “Patients should recognize that they always have the right to request some space to discuss private matters away from other individuals with their doctor,” Chang added. “It may not mean that they will always get a private room, but most emergency staff will make their best effort to at least temporarily find a place to discuss sensitive topics in a space away from potentially prying ears.”

    Related articles:

    Why adding beds might not solve the problem of ‘hallway medicine’ anytime soon

    Patients needing admission to hospital stuck in ER longer, report says

  • 10 Mar 2018 9:00 AM | AIMHI Admin (Administrator)

    By Matt Kuhrt | Mar 6, 2018

    HHS Secretary Alex Azar outlined four priorities for the agency this week, and accelerating the path to value-based payment systems and reducing healthcare costs are at the top of his list.

    In remarks given to the Federation of American Hospitals on Monday, Azar delivered a blunt message.

    “Today’s healthcare system is simply not delivering outcomes commensurate with its cost,” he said.

    Despite recent advances in areas such as personalized medicine and cell therapies, he said, chronic diseases, including opioid addiction and high healthcare costs are still big problems.

    While the administration has expended its efforts to repeal parts of the Affordable Care Act, Azar stated unequivocally that there would be “no going back to a system that pays for procedures rather than value,” and promised that the administration has no fear of disrupting current arrangements, regardless of the special interests backing them.

    He also indicated a willingness to embrace “perhaps even an uncomfortable degree” of federal intervention in order to make the system work better for the stakeholders he sees as least well-served currently: patients and taxpayers.

    The secretary outlined four broad shifts in policy that he said will accelerate the move toward a system that rewards value:

    1. Moving ownership and control of electronic health records from providers to patients.

    Azar said lack of interoperability among current systems is the main barrier to patients’ ability to take control of their own healthcare information.

    1. Providing payers and providers with incentives to be more transparent about healthcare costs.

    The increasing prevalence of high-deductible insurance plans have made consumer awareness of the cost of their care much more important, according to Azar.

    He called on doctors, hospitals, drug companies and pharmacies to get more transparent about their costs and outcomes. If they fail to do so, he promised that the federal government has “plenty of levers to pull that would help drive this change.”

    1. Using Medicare and Medicaid to drive industry change.

    Calling the results of previous efforts to drive innovation such as efforts around affordable care organizations “lackluster,” the secretary promised “bold measures” that will “create a true competitive playing field where value is rewarded handsomely.”

    1. Reducing regulatory burdens.

    Azar promised that the government would address any regulatory burdens that impede progress toward value-based care provision.

    He particularly singled out reporting rules and FDA policies around communications that he said might inhibit collaboration among stakeholders.

  • 10 Mar 2018 6:00 AM | AIMHI Admin (Administrator)

    By Shelby Livingston  | March 7, 2018

    The nation’s largest health insurer, UnitedHealth Group, is following rival Anthem’s footsteps with a new payment policy aimed at reducing its emergency department claims costs.

    Under the policy, rolled out nationwide March 1, UnitedHealth is reviewing and adjusting facility claims for the most severe and costly ED visits for patients enrolled in the company’s commercial and Medicare Advantage plans.

    Hospitals that submit facility claims for ED visits with Level 4 or Level 5 evaluation and management codes—codes used for patients with complex, resource-intensive conditions—could see their claims adjusted downward or denied, depending on a hospital’s contract with the insurer, if UnitedHealth determines the claim didn’t justify a high-level code.

    Minnetonka, Minn.-based UnitedHealth said the policy is meant to ensure accurate coding among providers. But hospitals fear the policy could squeeze reimbursement even further and lead to lower revenue.

    UnitedHealth’s policy is different from Indianapolis-based Anthem’s, which has been denying coverage for ED visits that it decides were not emergencies after the fact. But both policies are aimed at lowering the insurers’ spending on ED claims. Taken together, the two insurers’ emergency department payment policies could represent a very real threat to providers’ bottom lines.

    “Some hospitals are going to be hit financially, are going to be paid less, either through straight denials or through down-coding to a Level 3, and it is going to be a big hit for some hospitals on the ER revenue … unless they can truly justify they are providing the care or the services that’s really needed,” said Dr. Christopher Stanley, a director at consulting firm Navigant who worked for UnitedHealthcare for nearly a decade, regarding UnitedHealthcare’s ED policy.

    While Anthem’s program is meant to ensure low-acuity conditions aren’t handled in the ED, UnitedHealth’s policy is focused on making sure payment for emergency department claims coded for the highest-acuity patients is justified.

    UnitedHealth will be using its subsidiary Optum’s tool, the EDC Analyzer, to audit facility claims submitted with Level 4 and 5 codes after a patient visits the ED and is sent home. The Optum tool takes into account the patient’s medical issue, co-morbidities and the diagnostic services performed during the ED visit to determine what UnitedHealth believes is the appropriate code.

    Emergency department facility fees are coded on a scale of 1 to 5, reflecting the complexity of care delivered and the amount of resources devoted to the patient. Level 1 codes are for low-acuity conditions, while Level 4 and 5 codes are for the most serious conditions that require lots of hands-on treatment, such as blunt trauma or severe infections. Higher codes are more expensive for insurers.

    UnitedHealth’s policy applies to all facilities, including free-standing emergency departments, that submit ED claims with Level 4 and 5 codes for members of the insurer’s commercial plans and Medicare Advantage plans. A December 2017 bulletin published by the insurance company also said the policy applied to members enrolled in Medicaid plans in some states, but that’s no longer the case for now. It’s important to note that the policy does not affect charges for professional services.

    UnitedHealth recorded $201.2 billion in 2017 revenue and serves 49.5 million members. Its commercial enrollment totals 29.9 million people, while its Medicare Advantage enrollment is 4.4 million.

    There are a few exceptions to the policy. It does not apply to claims for patients who end up being admitted to the hospital from the ED, critical-care patients, patients younger than 2 years old, or patients who died in the ED. The policy also excludes claims with certain diagnoses that often require greater-than-average resources when treated in the ED, such as significant nursing time, according to a UnitedHealthcare bulletin.

    “The goal of this revised policy is to ensure accurate coding by hospitals, and ultimately promoting accurate coding of healthcare services is an important step in achieving the triple aim of better care, better health and lower overall cost,” a UnitedHealth spokesman explained.

    The policy came about because UnitedHealth said its claims data showed the frequency of claims with Level 4 and 5 severity codes by more than 50% from 2007 to 2016, the UnitedHealth spokesman said. The company estimates that the more frequent use of those codes has increased U.S. healthcare costs by more than $1.5 billion, while also causing patients to spend hundreds more in medical bills.

    The American Hospital Association held a webinar with UnitedHealth in late February to explain the new policy to AHA members. An AHA spokeswoman said Thursday that the association is still reviewing the policy and does not yet have an official comment.

    UnitedHealth expects only a small subset of hospitals to be affected by the policy, namely those facilities that have shown a lot of variation in what they assign the highest severity ED codes. For instance, one facility billed UnitedHealth $275 for a patient’s ED visit for a fever and assigned the visit a Level 2 code. Three years later, the same facility saw the same patient for another fever and coded the visit at a Level 4. The bill amounted to $1,200.

    There is no national standard for hospitals to look to when coding ED visits. Instead, the CMS allows each hospital to set its own guidelines. Hospitals don’t like that UnitedHealth is imposing its own billing methodology on them.

    While UnitedHealth said hospitals that experience claim adjustments or denials would be able to appeal the decision, providers argue that appealing the decision will be difficult and time-consuming because they don’t know the ins and outs of UnitedHealth’s proprietary algorithm for determining the appropriate code. For the same reason, they say they won’t know how to align their billing guidelines with UnitedHealth’s to ensure they aren’t downcoded.

    “They’ve got this point system out there, but they’re not sharing what that point system is,” said Andrew Wheeler, vice president of finance at the Missouri Hospital Association. “So there’s no way for a hospital to duplicate what they’re suggesting the level of assignment should be.”

    Hospitals worry that the policy will be yet another way for insurers to deny claims.

    UnitedHealth said the claim adjustments won’t affect a patient’s cost-sharing, but providers argue that if a claim is denied outright, patients could be on the hook for the entire ED visit.

    “It’ll just make it more difficult to collect for services, said Jim Haynes, chief operating officer at the Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association.

    Haynes said Arizona hospitals are already having difficulty getting bills paid for UnitedHealth plan members, and in some cases are seeing as many as 20% to 30% of claims submitted to UnitedHealth being denied, though not necessarily due to the new ED policy, he said.

    Navigant’s Stanley, however, said the policy is a reasonable one to address increasing ED visits and the severity of the claims associated with those visits.

    The number of ED visits per year has steadily climbed over time, reaching 141.4 million in 2014, up 8.4% from 130.4 million in 2013, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    Meanwhile, the use of Level 5 codes has increased, leading to increased ED spending.

    September 2017 report by the Colorado Center for Improving Value in Health Care backs up UnitedHealth’s data. The organization found that the use of high-severity Level 5 codes for ED visits increased to 33.5% of commercial claims in the state in 2016 from 23.1% in 2009. Meanwhile, the use of Level 4, 3, 2, and 1 codes all decreased over the same time period

    Haynes said Arizona hospitals are already having difficulty getting bills paid for UnitedHealth plan members, and in some cases are seeing as many as 20% to 30% of claims submitted to UnitedHealth being denied, though not necessarily due to the new ED policy, he said.

    Navigant’s Stanley, however, said the policy is a reasonable one to address increasing ED visits and the severity of the claims associated with those visits.

    The number of ED visits per year has steadily climbed over time, reaching 141.4 million in 2014, up 8.4% from 130.4 million in 2013, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    Meanwhile, the use of Level 5 codes has increased, leading to increased ED spending.

    September 2017 report by the Colorado Center for Improving Value in Health Care backs up UnitedHealth’s data. The organization found that the use of high-severity Level 5 codes for ED visits increased to 33.5% of commercial claims in the state in 2016 from 23.1% in 2009. Meanwhile, the use of Level 4, 3, 2, and 1 codes all decreased over the same time period

  • 27 Feb 2018 2:00 PM | AIMHI Admin (Administrator)

    First Published in EMS World Magazine  Dec 2016.

    Demonstrating high performance and high value is becoming increasingly important to our evolving healthcare environment and changing community expectations. The financial sustainability—and perhaps even the very survival—of EMS may hinge on our ability to prove the services we provide are valuable.

    Defining value in EMS has been relatively elusive, as clinical, operational and fiscal performance measures are often disparate from one system to another. But there are common hallmarks of high performance that any EMS agency can use to demonstrate value to stakeholders.

    The Academy of International Mobile Healthcare Integration (AIMHI)—an association of EMS agencies committed to providing high-performance and high-value EMS and mobile healthcare services—is excited to partner with EMS World to produce a yearlong series of articles that will discuss the attributes of high-performance/high-value EMS system design and operations. The series will include topics such as:

    • Attributes of high-performance EMS;
    • International models of EMS system design;
    • Using data to maximize operational efficiency;
    • Financial analysis and new economic models;
    • IT trends and cybersecurity in EMS;
    • Managing a diverse workforce;
    • Working with elected and appointed officials;
    • Developing stakeholder relationships;
    • Case studies and lessons learned in remote deployment centers.

    The goal of the series is to assist EMS agencies in creating high-performance EMS processes and help demonstrate value to local community stakeholders.

    —Matt Zavadsky, MS-HSA, EMT, Chief Strategic Integration Officer, MedStar Mobile Healthcare, Ft. Worth, TX

    EMS systems of today, regardless of their design, face unprecedented challenges. Changing stakeholder expectations and rising financial pressures are driving a need to demonstrate that they provide value. Recent local and national media stories illustrate this shift in expectations and challenge the value equation the EMS profession has used for years.1–7

    “Police transport a good bet for shooting victims, study finds”

    “Need an ambulance? Why you may not want the more sophisticated version”

    “Think the ER is expensive? Look at how much it costs to get there”

    “Modesto rejects $1M firefighter paramedic grant”

    Continue Reading

    “Lockport plans to auction off ambulances, cut fire staffing minimum”

    “Kalispell voters reject extra taxes for EMS”

    “Is the current model for public safety service delivery sustainable?”

    EMS agencies that desire to be successful in this rapidly changing environment need to demonstrate value in new ways by delivering high-performance EMS (HPEMS) as the first step to proving high-value EMS (HVEMS). There are generally three main hallmarks of HPEMS: clinical proficiency, operational effectiveness and fiscal efficiency. These hallmarks must be leveraged in a way that balances what is known as the EMS success triad: patient care, employee well-being and long-term financial sustainability. The Academy of International Mobile Healthcare Integration (AIMHI) has articulated several key attributes of a high-performance EMS system that help achieve these three hallmarks:

    1. Sole Provider

    Clinical proficiency—As a sole provider, an EMS agency will generally be able to maintain a high utilization of the EMTs and paramedics operating within the system. Higher utilization provides the opportunity to refine critical clinical skills such as patient assessment and effective clinical care. Additionally, a single source of quality oversight for all emergency and nonemergency calls helps ensure every provider, regardless of the type of service they provide, shares common credentialing and quality improvement processes.

    Operational effectiveness—A single provider can also maximize operational effectiveness for the system. A patient awaiting transport to a skilled nursing facility from Acme General Hospital can be efficiently transported by the ambulance that just brought a chest pain patient into Acme General’s emergency room. The same unit that transports the patient to the SNF can then be posted to provide temporal or geospatial coverage to that area. Having multiple ambulance providers operating in the same market generally leads to underutilized resources and makes the system less operationally effective.

    Fiscal efficiency—The provision of 9-1-1 service is expensive, and the reimbursements more challenging. A sole provider can balance the generally lower-cost, higher-reimbursement nonemergency services to help offset high-cost, low-reimbursement 9-1-1 services. A single layer of utility-like cost structure minimizes the financial impact to the taxpayer and other payers. Further, the operational effectiveness of the sole provider, as explained above, helps reduce the overall cost of the EMS system by preventing multiple infrastructure costs and lower utilization.

    2. External Accountability

    Clinical proficiency—Holding yourself externally accountable for clinical care helps improve the care provided by identifying areas of potential improvement, coming up with a plan for improvement, implementing the plan and evaluating the results. Some EMS agencies are financially incentivized for demonstrating compliance with scientifically proven clinical bundles of care for conditions such as STEMI, stroke, trauma and hypoglycemia.

    Operational effectiveness—External accountability for performance measures like extended response times, unit hour utilization, lost unit hours, employee turnover and mission failures encourages the EMS agency to continually improve these metrics.

    Fiscal efficiency—Similarly, reporting and being held accountable for financial measures such as cost per unit hour, cost per call, cost per transport, revenue per transport and revenue per unit hour encourages EMS agencies to improve these measures, as well as benchmark their performance to other similar agencies.

    3. Control Center Operations

    Clinical proficiency—Controlling your own resources helps ensure your units are appropriately utilized, increasing the clinical proficiency of your field EMTs and paramedics. If another agency is controlling the placement and deployment of your units, it is more difficult to assure appropriate utilization.

    Operational effectiveness—As with clinical proficiency, relying on another agency to control your assets may reduce operational effectiveness and make it harder to achieve the correct balance between supply and demand.

    Fiscal efficiency—Relinquishing control of your assets to another control center operator may increase costs through less effective asset utilization and lost unit hours.

    4. Revenue Maximization

    Clinical proficiency—Employing system design and business practices that maximize revenue generation within the EMS system allows the provider greater ability to invest in training, equipment and medical oversight that improves clinical proficiency. For example, FirstPass, a valuable tool for near-real-time clinical quality metrics, requires a significant resource investment. The ability to invest in a system like FirstPass is enhanced when the agency maximizes revenue generation.

    Operational effectiveness—The same is true for investing in tools and processes to achieve operational effectiveness. Examples could include an investment in software to predict call volume and locations; dedicated departments that stock, maintain and redeploy ambulances with a high degree of reliability; and sophisticated computer-aided dispatch systems designed to maximize resource utilization.

    Fiscal efficiency—Clearly collecting the appropriate fees for the services you provide helps make the system more financially sustainable and could even reduce the tax subsidy burden. This is common in some EMS-based fire agencies that provide nonemergency transfer services as a way to increase revenues.

    5. Flexible Production Strategy

    Clinical proficiency—Effectively matching supply to demand helps ensure enough EMS resources are on duty to handle larger call volumes while minimizing the number of idle units and amount of nonproductive time. This again helps assure field providers are using their clinical skills regularly to maintain proficiency. It also helps prevent burnout (too many calls per provider) and rustout (too few calls per provider).

    Operational effectiveness—Using a flexible production strategy helps maintain a healthy and manageable unit utilization through the day and year, making the system more operationally effective.

    Fiscal efficiency—Matching supply to demand improves the financial efficiency of the system by minimizing the expense of excess capacity.

    6. Dynamic Resource Management (DRM), System Status Management (SSM)

    Clinical proficiency—As with the other attributes, moving resources within the system to cover anticipated demand helps enhance utilization and consequently improve providers’ clinical proficiency. It may also help reduce utilization in high call volume areas and prevent burnout.

    Operational effectiveness—Having the right resources in the right locations can significantly improve operational effectiveness. If you know there are high-volume areas in your jurisdiction, dynamically deploying resources from low-volume areas allows for enhanced service delivery.

    Fiscal efficiency—Matching supply to demand is a first step in achieving fiscal efficiency. The second step is to have those resources in the right places. DRM allows moving available resources throughout the system to meet anticipated call volume. Combining a flexible production strategy with DRM has a significant impact on effectively using your on-duty resources.

    The EMS Success Triad

    The EMS success triad is a philosophy and business compass that can be adopted within any EMS system type, and its importance is highlighted in any HPEMS system. The triad includes a constant balancing of:

    Patient care—When we speak of patient care, we must think beyond the clinical aspects of care and also include the value aspects such as patient satisfaction, patient safety, customer service, response time and service reliability, and outcomes.

    Employee well-being—EMS is a service business, and service businesses are founded on their people. EMS must acknowledge this and build systems and processes that acknowledge the impacts of lean design on its teams. Issues such as adequate breaks, workload balancing, employee engagement, just culture, trust, employee safety systems, work-life balance, schedules and scheduling, compensation strategies, organizational and mission passion and decision making involvement are just a few areas EMS must work to improve.

    Long-term financial sustainability—Every decision made within an EMS organization has a cost that impacts the triad in some fashion. These costs must be accounted for and balanced. Cost is a relative term and not necessarily financial in nature (e.g., impacts on patient care and employee well-being). No matter the type of business structure or operational philosophy an EMS system has, the concept of “no margin, no mission” always applies. Long-term business, financial and other cost impacts must always be kept in check if an EMS system is to remain sustainable.

    While not every EMS agency or community will be able to employ all the attributes of HPEMS, we are convinced many EMS providers can use some of these principles to demonstrate the value they bring to their community.

    In next month’s column we’ll focus on providing high-value EMS.

    About AIMHI

    AIMHI represents high-performance emergency medical and mobile healthcare providers in the U.S. and abroad who deliver care to more than six million people over more than 43,000 square miles and responding to nearly a million calls annually.

    Formerly known as the Coalition of Advanced Emergency Medical Services (CAEMS), AIMHI changed its name in March 2015 to better reflect its members’ dedication to promoting high-performance ambulance and mobile integrated healthcare systems.

    Member organizations include high-performance EMS systems in locations such as Oklahoma City and Tulsa, OK; Fort Worth, TX; Richmond, VA; Pinellas County, FL; Charlotte, NC; Niagara, ON, and the province of Nova Scotia, Canada; New York, NY; Little Rock, AR; Davenport, IA; Three Rivers, IN; and Reno, NV. Find more information on AIMHI at www.aimhi.mobi.

    References

    1. Avril T. Police transport a good bet for shooting victims, study finds. Philadelphia Inquirer, 2014 Jan 8.

    2. Sun LH. Need an ambulance? Why you may not want the more sophisticated versionWashington Post, 2015 Oct 12.

    3. Rosenthal E. Think the E.R. Is Expensive? Look at How Much It Costs to Get There. New York Times, 2013 Dec 4.

    4. Valine K. Modesto rejects $1M firefighter paramedic grant. Modesto Bee, 2016 Oct 5.

    5. Prohaska TJ. Lockport plans to auction off ambulances, cut fire staffing minimumBuffalo News, 2014 Aug 27.

    6. Loper B. Kalispell voters reject extra taxes for EMS. Daily Inter Lake.

    7. Matarese L. Is the Current Model for Public Safety Service Delivery Sustainable? ICMA Publications.

    Doug Hooten, MBA, is the chief executive officer of MedStar Mobile Healthcare in Fort Worth, TX. He has over 37 years of experience in EMS, having served as senior vice president of operations and regional director for American Medical Response, CEO of the Metropolitan Ambulance Service Trust (MAST) in Kansas City, and in a variety of leadership roles with Rural/Metro in South Carolina, Georgia, Ohio and Texas. He has expertise in change management, cost optimization, process improvement and clinical excellence. Doug is the president of AIMHI, serves as a board member for the American Ambulance Association and is a member of the National EMS Advisory Council (NEMSAC). 

    Jonathan Washko, MBA, NREMT-P, AEMD, is the assistant vice president for Northwell Health’s Center for EMS and leads numerous innovation efforts to improve patient care, employee well-being and the long-term financial sustainability of EMS systems. He volunteers as a board member with the American Ambulance Association, NAEMT, AIMHI and NYMIHA and also serves as a member of the EMS Compass initiative, working to develop standardized industry measures, as well as an advisor to the Promoting Innovation in EMS (PIE) project. Reach him by e-mail at jwashko@northwell.edu

  • 27 Feb 2018 12:00 PM | AIMHI Admin (Administrator)

    Documenting stroke assessment, 12-lead EKG, and aspirin administration highlight areas for improvement

    February 15, 2018 – AUSTIN, Texas – ESO Solutions, Inc., the leading data and software company serving emergency medical services (EMS), hospitals and fire departments, today announced the findings of its inaugural report, the 2018 ESO EMS Index. The Index tracks performance of EMS agencies nationwide across five metrics: Stroke assessment and documentation, overdose events, end-tidal carbon dioxide (ETCO2) monitoring, 12-lead electrocardiogram (EKG) use and aspirin administration for chest pain. Data used for the Index are from January 1, 2017 through December 31, 2017.

    “There are changes on the horizon for EMS agencies across the country,” said Dr. Brent Myers, Chief Medical Officer for ESO. “In particular, we are seeing new data and research emerge around the increased importance of stroke assessment and documentation that could improve patient outcomes. Additionally, the opioid crisis continues to be an issue that will have an effect on EMS providers. This newly launched Index is part of our ongoing commitment to the smart use of data to help agencies across the country assess their performance across a handful of metrics.”

    Key Findings Include:

    • In only 50 percent of situations was a complete stroke assessment documented for a primary impression of stroke. The data show that EMS providers are not completing the entire stroke assessment or failing to document the assessment after a primary impression of stroke is identified.

    • Overdose encounters outpaced cases where stroke was the primary impression. There were nearly 12 percent more overdose cases reported in 2017 than strokes, aligning with much of what paramedics are reporting the last few years.

    • More men than women overdosed: Men accounted for 28 percent more overdose encounters than women.

    • EMS providers recognize the value of end-tidal CO2 monitoring after advanced airway placement. In 94.5 percent of cases, ETCO2 monitoring was initiated after advanced airway insertion.

    • Aspirin administration is hit or miss. Just more than half (55.3 percent) of the reported cases of non-traumatic chest pain patients over the age of 35 had appropriately documented administration of aspirin for chest pain.

    The full Index can be downloaded at: www.esosolutions.com/index.

    About the Index

    The dataset for the ESO EMS Index is real-world data, compiled and aggregated from more than 1,000 agencies across the United States that use ESO’s products and services. These data are based on 5.02 million patient encounters between January 1, 2017 and December 31, 2017, representing a full calendar year.

    About ESO Solutions

    ESO Solutions, Inc., is dedicated to improving community health and safety through the power of data. Since its founding in 2004, the company has been a pioneer in electronic patient care records (ePCR) software for emergency medical services, fire departments and ambulance services. Today, ESO serves more than 13,000 agencies throughout the U.S. The company’s healthcare, public safety and technology experts deliver the most innovative software and data solutions on the market, including the industry-leading ESO Electronic Health Record (EHR); ESO Health Data Exchange (HDE), the first-of-its-kind healthcare interoperability platform; record management system (RMS) for fire departments; and ambulance revenue recovery/billing software. ESO is also playing a leading role in helping EMS provider organizations across the nation successfully transition to NEMSIS Version 3 and new state standards for electronic patient care reporting.

    ESO is headquartered in Austin, Texas. For more information, visit www.esosolutions.com.

  • 27 Feb 2018 9:30 AM | AIMHI Admin (Administrator)

    Article by Shawn Shinneman

    Hurst-based Cook Children’s Northeast Hospital will close on April 20 and begin a transition to become an ambulatory surgery center, with the new name of Cook Children’s Surgery Center, according to a news release. Here’s how the release from Cook Children’s Health Care System describes the decision:

    In late 2017, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a memo defining the overnight census requirement to operate as a hospital. Cook Children’s Northeast Hospital, located at 6316 Precinct Line Road in Hurst, Texas, does not meet the census requirement and will no longer be able to operate as a hospital.

    The memo referenced—I believe I’ve located it here—contains CMS’ move to redefine what constitutes who can or can’t call themselves a hospital under Medicare and Medicaid. Under the new definition, things like average daily census and average daily stay can be taken into consideration.

    The memo casts those merely as pieces to the puzzle, but it appears Cook Children’s leadership has determined it won’t be able to overcome the census requirement. (I’ve reached out to gauge how they made the call, and I’ll update here or post anew if and when I get answers.)

    The release says only that the board that oversees the hospital made the decision on the new direction. Cook Children’s says it will “assume ownership and operations of the Urgent Care Clinic, Imaging Center, and Draw station at this location” on April 23.

    The surgical center will open on May 1 and run as a joint venture between Cook Children’s, NueHealth, and physician investors.

    The transition will result in 150 lost jobs, the release said.

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